A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage, they may also be used in industrial counter-espionage to protect secret projects and the like from business rivals, or to give names to projects whose marketing name has not yet been determined. Another reason for the use of names and phrases in the military is that they transmit with a lower level of cumulative errors over a walkie-talkie or radio link than actual names.

During World War I, names common to the Allies referring to nations, cities, geographical features, military units, military operations, diplomatic meetings, places, and individual persons were agreed upon, adapting pre-war naming procedures in use by the governments concerned. In the British case names were administered and controlled by the Inter Services Security Board (ISSB) staffed by the War Office;[1] this procedure was coordinated with the United States when America entered the war. Random lists of names were issued to users in alphabetical blocks of ten words and were selected as required. Words became available for re-use after six months and unused allocations could be reassigned at discretion and according to need. Judicious selection from the available allocation could result in clever meanings and result in an aptronym or backronym, although policy was to select words that had no obviously deducible connection with what they were supposed to be concealing; those for the major conference meetings had a partial naming sequence referring to devices or instruments which had an ordinal number as part of their meaning, e.g., the third meeting was "TRIDENT". Joseph Stalin, whose last name means "man of steel", was given the name "GLYPTIC", meaning "an image carved out of stone".

Ewen Montagu, a British Naval intelligence officer, discloses in Beyond Top Secret Ultra that during World War II, Nazi Germany habitually used ad hoc code names as nicknames which often openly revealed or strongly hinted at their content or function.

Britain and the United States developed the security policy of assigning code names intended to give no such clues to the uninitiated. For example, the British counter measures against the V-2 was called Operation Crossbow; the atomic bomb project centered in New Mexico was called the Manhattan Project, derived from the Manhattan Engineer District which managed the program. The code name for the American A-12 / SR-71 spy plane project, producing the fastest, highest-flying aircraft in the world, was Oxcart; the American group that planned that country's first ICBM was called the Teapot Committee.

Although the word could stand for a menace to shipping (in this case, that of Japan), the American code name for the attack on the subtropical island of Okinawa in World War II was Operation Iceberg; the Soviet Union's project to base missiles in Cuba was named Operation Anadyr after their closest bomber base to the US (just across the Bering Strait from Nome, Alaska). The names of colors are generally avoided in American practice to avoid confusion with meteorological reporting practices. Britain, in contrast, made deliberately non-meaningful use of them, through the system of rainbow codes.

Although German and Italian aircraft were not given code names by their Allied opponents, in 1942, Captain Frank T. McCoy, an intelligence officer of the USAAF, invented a system for the identification of Japanese military aircraft. Initially using short, "hillbilly" boys' names such as "Pete", "Jake", and "Rufe", the system was later extended to include girls' names and names of trees and birds, and became widely used by the Allies throughout the Pacific theater of war; this type of naming scheme differs from the other use of code names in that it does not have to be kept secret, but is a means of identification where the official nomenclature is unknown or uncertain.

The policy of recognition reporting names was continued into the Cold War for Soviet, other Warsaw Pact, and Communist Chinese aircraft. Although this was started by the Air Standards Co-ordinating Committee (ASCC) formed by the United States, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, it was extended throughout NATO as the NATO reporting name for aircraft, rockets and missiles; these names were considered by the Soviets as being like a nickname given to one's unit by the opponents in a battle, such as the U.S. Marines were called by the Germans in France "Devil Dogs"[citation needed], which they appreciated as a feather in their cap. The Soviets did not like the Sukhoi Su-25 getting the code name "Frogfoot".[citation needed] However, some names were appropriate, such as "Condor" for the Antonov An-124, or, most famously, "Fulcrum" for the Mikoyan MiG-29, which had a "pivotal" role in Soviet air-strategy.

Code names were adopted by the following process. Aerial or space reconnaissance would note a new aircraft at a Warsaw Pact airbase; the intelligence units would then assign it a code name consisting of the official abbreviation of the base, then a letter, for example, "Ram-A", signifying an aircraft sighted at Ramenskoye Airport. Missiles were given designations like "TT-5", for the fifth rocket seen at Tyura-Tam; when more information resulted in knowing a bit about what a missile was used for, it would be given a designation like "SS-6", for the sixth surface-to-surface missile design reported. Finally, when either an aircraft or a missile was able to be photographed with a hand-held camera, instead of a reconnaissance aircraft, it was given a name like "Flanker" or "Scud" – always an English word, as international pilots worldwide are required to learn English; the Soviet manufacturer or designation – which may be mistakenly inferred by NATO – has nothing to do with it.

Jet-powered aircraft received two-syllable names like Foxbat, while propeller aircraft were designated with short names like Bull. Fighter names began with an "F", bombers with a "B", cargo aircraft with a "C". Training aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft were grouped under the word "miscellaneous", and received "M"; the same convention applies to missiles, with air-launched ground attack missiles beginning with the letter "K" and surface-to-surface missiles (ranging from intercontinental ballistic missiles to antitank rockets) with the letter "S", air-to-air missiles "A", and surface-to-air missiles "G".

Throughout the Second World War, the British allocation practice favored one-word code names (Jubilee, Frankton); that of the Americans favored longer compound words, although the name Overlord was personally chosen by Winston Churchill himself. Many examples of both types can be cited, as can exceptions.

Winston Churchill was particular about the quality of code names, he insisted that code words, especially for dangerous operations, would be not overly grand nor petty nor common. One emotional goal he mentions is to never have to report to anyone that their son "was killed in an operation called 'Bunnyhug' or 'Ballyhoo'."[5]

Presently, British forces tend to use one-word names, presumably in keeping with their post-World War II policy of reserving single words for operations and two-word names for exercises. British operation code names are usually randomly generated by a computer and rarely reveal its components or any political implications unlike the American names (e.g., the 2003 invasion of Iraq was called "Operation Telic" compared to Americans' "Operation Iraqi Freedom", obviously chosen for propaganda rather than secrecy). Americans prefer two-word names, whereas the Canadians and Australians use either; the French military currently prefer names drawn from nature (such as colors or the names of animals), for instance Opération Daguet ("brocket deer") or Opération Baliste ("Triggerfish"). The CIA uses alphabetical prefixes to designate the part of the agency supporting an operation.

In many cases with the United States, the first word of the name has to do with the intent of the program. Programs with "have" as the first word, such as Have Blue for the stealth fighter development, are developmental programs, not meant to produce a production aircraft. Programs that start with Senior, such as Senior Trend for the F-117, are for aircraft in testing meant to enter production.[citation needed]

In the United States code names are commonly set entirely in upper case; this is not done in other countries, though for the UK in British documents the code name is in upper case while operation is shortened to OP e.g., "Op. TELIC".

This presents an opportunity for a bit of public-relations (Operation Just Cause), or for controversy over the naming choice (Operation Infinite Justice, renamed Operation Enduring Freedom). Computers are now used to aid in the selection, and further, there is a distinction between the secret names during former wars and the published names of recent ones.

To uniquely identify the project within the organization. Code names are frequently chosen to be outside the normal business/domain jargon that the organization uses, in order to not conflict with established terminology.

To assist with maintaining secrecy of the project against rival concerns. Some corporations routinely change project names in order to further confuse competitors.

When the goal of the project is to develop one or more commercial products, use of a code name allows the eventual choice of product nomenclature (the name the product(s) are marketed and sold under) to be decoupled from the development effort. This is especially important when one project generates multiple products, or multiple projects are needed to produce a single product; this allows for subprojects to be given a separate identity from the main project.

To decouple an early phase of a development effort (which may have failed) from a subsequent phase (which may be given a "fresh start") as a political tool.

To prevent casual observers from concluding that a pre-release version is a new release of the product, thus helping reduce confusion.

Different organizations have different policies regarding the use and publication of project code names; some companies take great pains to never discuss or disclose project code names outside of the company (other than with outside entities who have a need to know, and typically are bound with a non-disclosure agreement). Other companies never use them in official or formal communications, but widely disseminate project code names through informal channels (often in an attempt to create a marketing buzz for the project). Still others (such as Microsoft) discuss code names publicly, and routinely use project code names on beta releases and such, but remove them from final product(s). At the other end of the spectrum, Apple Computer includes the project code names for Mac OS X as part of the official name of the final product, a practice that was started in 2002 with Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar".

Smiling Buddha – (Pokhran-I), was an assigned codename of India's first nuclear weapon explosion, which took place on 18 May 1974. The device was detonated by the Indian Army in the long-constructed army base, Pokhran Test Range, it was also the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation outside the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

AMD have also been naming their CPUs since 90 nm generations under the K8 micro-architecture after the name of cities around the world. For the CPUs under the Phenom brand, the names of stars were used as code names. For Opteron server CPUs and platforms, cities related to the Ferrari Formula One team were used. Mobile platforms are named after birds (except for Puma). For example:

Intel often names CPU projects after rivers in the American West, particularly in the state of Oregon (where most of Intel's CPU projects are designed). Examples include Willamette, Deschutes, Yamhill, Tualatin, and Clackamas. See List of Intel codenames.

Return of the Jedi was code-named "Blue Harvest" while in production and principal photography. This was reportedly to prevent disruption by fans and the media as well as to avoid price gouging by local merchants and vendors.

^Webster, Graham (2013). "History of the British Inter-Services Security Board and the Allocation of Code-Names in the Second World War". Intelligence and National Security. 29 (5): 1–31. doi:10.1080/02684527.2013.846731.

Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost prefecture of Japan. It encompasses two thirds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over 1,000 kilometres long; the Ryukyu Islands extend southwest from Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu to Taiwan. Naha, Okinawa's capital, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island. Although Okinawa Prefecture comprises just 0.6 percent of Japan's total land mass, about 75 percent of all United States military personnel stationed in Japan are assigned to installations in the prefecture. About 26,000 U. S. troops are based in the prefecture. The oldest evidence of human existence on the Ryukyu islands is from the Stone Age and was discovered in Naha and Yaeyama; some human bone fragments from the Paleolithic era were unearthed from a site in Naha, but the artifact was lost in transportation before it was examined to be Paleolithic or not. Japanese Jōmon influences are dominant on the Okinawa Islands, although clay vessels on the Sakishima Islands have a commonality with those in Taiwan.

The first mention of the word Ryukyu was written in the Book of Sui. Okinawa was the Japanese word identifying the islands, first seen in the biography of Jianzhen, written in 779. Agricultural societies begun in the 8th century developed until the 12th century. Since the islands are located at the eastern perimeter of the East China Sea close to Japan and South-East Asia, the Ryukyu Kingdom became a prosperous trading nation. During this period, many Gusukus, similar to castles, were constructed; the Ryukyu Kingdom entered into the Imperial Chinese tributary system under the Ming dynasty beginning in the 15th century, which established economic relations between the two nations. In 1609, the Shimazu clan, which controlled the region, now Kagoshima Prefecture, invaded the Ryukyu Kingdom; the Ryukyu Kingdom was obliged to agree to form a suzerain-vassal relationship with the Satsuma and the Tokugawa shogunate, while maintaining its previous role within the Chinese tributary system. The Satsuma clan earned considerable profits from trade with China during a period in which foreign trade was restricted by the shogunate.

Although Satsuma maintained strong influence over the islands, the Ryukyu Kingdom maintained a considerable degree of domestic political freedom for over two hundred years. Four years after the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government, through military incursions annexed the kingdom and renamed it Ryukyu han. At the time, the Qing Empire asserted a nominal suzerainty over the islands of the Ryukyu Kingdom, since the Ryūkyū Kingdom was a member state of the Chinese tributary system. Ryukyu han became Okinawa Prefecture of Japan in 1879 though all other hans had become prefectures of Japan in 1872. In 1912, Okinawans first obtained the right to vote for representatives to the National Diet, established in 1890. Near the end of World War II, in 1945, the US Army and Marine Corps invaded Okinawa with 185,000 troops. A third of the civilian population died; the dead, of all nationalities, are commemorated at the Cornerstone of Peace. After the end of World War II, the Ryukyu independence movement developed, while Okinawa was under United States Military Government of the Ryukyu Islands administration for 27 years.

During this "trusteeship rule", the United States established numerous military bases on the Ryukyu islands. During the Korean War, B-29 Superfortresses flew bombing missions over Korea from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa; the military buildup on the island during the Cold War increased a division between local inhabitants and the American military. Under the 1952 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, the United States Forces Japan have maintained a large military presence. Since 1960, the U. S. and Japan have maintained an agreement that allows the U. S. to secretly bring nuclear weapons into Japanese ports. The Japanese tended to oppose the introduction of nuclear arms into Japanese territory by the government's assertion of Japan's non-nuclear policy and a statement of the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. Most of the weapons were alleged to be stored in ammunition bunkers at Kadena Air Base. Between 1954 and 1972, 19 different types of nuclear weapons were deployed in Okinawa, but with fewer than around 1,000 warheads at any one time.

Between 1965 and 1972, Okinawa was a key staging point for the United States in its military operations directed towards North Vietnam. Along with Guam, it presented a geographically strategic launch pad for covert bombing missions over Cambodia and Laos. Anti-Vietnam War sentiment became linked politically to the movement for reversion of Okinawa to Japan. In 1965, the US military bases, earlier viewed as paternal post war protection, were seen as aggressive; the Vietnam War highlighted the differences between the United States and Okinawa, but showed a commonality between the islands and mainland Japan. As controversy grew regarding the alleged placement of nuclear weapons on Okinawa, fears intensified over the escalation of the Vietnam War. Okinawa was perceived, by some inside Japan, as a potential target for China, should the communist government feel threatened by the United States. American military secrecy blocked any local reporting on what was occurring at bases such as Kadena Air Base.

As information leaked out, images of air strikes were published, the local population began to fear the potential for retaliation. Political leaders such as Oda Makoto

Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the Gleichschaltung legal process; the official name of the state was Deutsches Reich until 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany is known as the Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", the first two being the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire; the Nazi regime ended. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, on 30 January 1933; the NSDAP began to eliminate all political opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934 and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the offices and powers of the Chancellery and Presidency. A national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany.

All power was centralised in Hitler's person and his word became the highest law. The government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitler's favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen; the return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity. Racismantisemitism, was a central feature of the regime; the Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the master race, the purest branch of the Aryan race. Discrimination and persecution against Jews and Romani people began in earnest after the seizure of power; the first concentration camps were established in March 1933. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, liberals and communists were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed, many leaders imprisoned.

Education focused on racial biology, population policy, fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed. Recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased Germany on the international stage. Propaganda MinisterJoseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, Hitler's hypnoticoratory to influence public opinion; the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. The Nazi regime dominated neighbours through military threats in the years leading up to war. Nazi Germany made aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if these were not met, it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR, invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe. By early 1941, Germany controlled much of Europe. Reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas and a German administration was established in the remainder of Poland.

Germany exploited labour of both its occupied territories and its allies. In the Holocaust, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, or shot. While the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was successful, the Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant the Wehrmacht lost the initiative on the Eastern Front in 1943 and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the pre-1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated in 1944 and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. After the Allied invasion of France, Germany was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, capitulated in May 1945. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure and additional war-related deaths in the closing months of the war; the victorious Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.

The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945, while common English terms are "Nazi Germany" and "Third Reich". The latter, adopted by Nazi propaganda as Drittes Reich, was first used in Das Dritte Reich, a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck; the book counted the Holy Roman Empire as the German Empire as the second. Germany was known as the Weimar Republic during the years 1919 to 1933, it was a republic with a semi-presidential system. The Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, contentious relationships with the Allied victors of World War I, a series of failed attempts at coalition government by divided political parties. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles; the government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices for consumer goods, economic chaos, food riots.

When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along the Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. The National Socialist German Workers' Party (National

The Abwehr was the German military intelligence service for the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht from 1920 to 1945. Despite the fact that the Treaty of Versailles prohibited the Germans altogether from establishing an intelligence organization of their own, they formed an espionage group in 1920 within the Ministry of Defense, calling it the Abwehr; the initial purpose of the Abwehr was defense against foreign espionage—an organizational role which evolved considerably. Under General Kurt von Schleicher the individual military services' intelligence units were combined and, in 1929, centralized under his Ministry of Defense, forming the foundation for the more understood manifestation of the Abwehr; each Abwehr station throughout Germany was based on army districts and more offices were opened in amenable neutral countries and in the occupied territories as the greater Reich expanded. The Ministry of Defense was renamed the Ministry of War in 1935 and replaced by Adolf Hitler altogether with the new OKW.

The OKW was part of the Führer's personal "working staff" from June 1938 and the Abwehr became its intelligence agency under Vice-AdmiralWilhelm Canaris. Its headquarters was located at 76/78 Tirpitzufer, adjacent to the offices of the OKW; the Abwehr was created in 1920 as part of the German Ministry of Defence when the German government was allowed to form the Reichswehr, the military organization of the Weimar Republic. The first head of the Abwehr was Major Friedrich Gempp, a former deputy to ColonelWalter Nicolai, the head of German intelligence during World War I, who proved ineffectual. At that time it was composed of only three officers and seven former officers, plus a clerical staff; when Gempp became a general, he was promoted out of the job as chief, to be followed by Major Günther Schwantes, whose term as the organization's leader was brief. Many members of the Reichswehr declined when asked to consider intelligence work, since for them, it was outside the realm of actual military service and the act of spying clashed with their Prussian military sensibilities of always showing themselves direct and sincere.

By the 1920s, the growing Abwehr was organised into three sections: The Reichsmarine intelligence staff merged with the Abwehr in 1928. While the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from engaging in any form of espionage or spying, during the Nazi era the Abwehr disregarded this prohibition, as they saw it as hypocritical. In the 1930s, with the rise of the Nazi movement, the Ministry of Defence was reorganised. Proving himself quite a capable chief, Patzig swiftly assured the military of his intentions and worked to earn their respect, his successes did not stop the other branches of the military services from developing their own intelligence staffs. After the Nazis seized power, the Abwehr began sponsoring reconnaissance flights across the border with Poland, under the direction of Patzig, but this led to confrontations with Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS. Army leaders feared that the flights would endanger the secret plans for an attack on Poland. Adolf Hitler ordered the termination of the overflights in 1934 after he signed a nonaggression treaty with Poland since these reconnaissance missions might be discovered and jeopardize the treaty.

Patzig was fired in January 1935 as a result, sent to command the new pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. His replacement was Wilhelm Canaris. Before he took over the Abwehr on 1 January 1935, the soon-to-be Admiral Canaris was warned by Patzig of attempts by Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich to take over all German intelligence organizations. Heydrich, who headed the Sicherheitsdienst from 1931, had a negative attitude towards the Abwehr—shaped in part by his belief that Germany's defeat in the First World War was attributable to failures of military intelligence, by his ambitions to control all political intelligence-gathering for Germany. Canaris, a master of backroom dealings, thought he knew how to deal with Himmler. Though he tried to maintain a cordial relationship with them, the antagonism between the Abwehr and the SS did not stop when Canaris took over. Not only was competition with Heydrich and Himmler's intelligence operations a hindrance, so too were the redundant attempts by multiple organizations to control communications intelligence for the Reich.

For instance, Canaris's Abwehr controlled the Armed Forces Deciphering operation, while the navy maintained its own listening service, known as the B-Dienst. Further complicating COMINT matters, the Foreign Office had its own communications security branch, the Pers Z S. Matters came to a head in 1937 when Hitler decided to help Joseph Stalin in the latter's purge of the Soviet military. Hitler ordered that the German Army staff should be kept in the dark about Stalin's intentions, for fear that they would warn their Soviet counterparts due to their long-standing relations. Accordingly, special SS teams, accompanied by burglary experts from the criminal police, broke into the secret files of the General Staff and the Abwehr and removed documents related to German-Soviet collaboration. To conceal the thefts, fires were started at the break-ins. Unaware that Canaris would try to subvert his plans, Hitler sent him as a special envoy to Madrid during the early

The building was opened in 1977 as an additional home for the public records, which were held in a building on Chancery Lane. The site was a World War I hospital, used by several government departments, it is near to Kew Gardens Underground station. Until its closure in March 2008, the Family Records Centre in Islington was run jointly by The National Archives and the General Register Office; the National Archives has an additional office in Norwich, for former OPSI staff. There is an additional record storage facility in the worked-out parts of Winsford Rock Salt Mine, Cheshire. For earlier history, see Public Record Office; the National Archives was created in 2003 by combining the Public Record Office and the Historical Manuscripts Commission and is a non-ministerial department reporting to the Minister of State for digital policy. On 31 October 2006, The National Archives merged with the Office of Public Sector Information, which itself contained Her Majesty's Stationery Office, a part of the Cabinet Office.

The name remained The National Archives. 1991–2005: Sarah Tyacke 2005–2010: Natalie Ceeney 2010–2013: Oliver Morley 2013–2014: Clem Brohier 2014–present: Jeff James TNA claims it is "at the heart of information policy—setting standards and supporting innovation in information and records management across the UK, providing a practical framework of best practice for opening up and encouraging the re-use of public sector information. This work helps inform today's decisions and ensure that they become tomorrow's permanent record." It has a number of key roles in information policy: Policy – advising government on information practice and policy, on issues from record creation through to its reuse Selection – selecting which documents to store Preservation – ensuring the documents remain in as good a condition as possible Access – providing the public with the opportunity to view the documents Advice – advising the public and other archives and archivists around the world on how to care for documents Intellectual property management – TNA manages crown copyright for the UK Regulation – ensuring that other public sector organisations adhere to both the public records act and the PSI reuse regulations.

The National Archives has long had a role of oversight and leadership for the entire archives sector and archives profession in the UK, including local government and non-governmental archives. Under the Public Records Act 1958 it is responsible for overseeing the appropriate custody of certain non-governmental public records in England and Wales. Under the 2003 Historical Manuscripts Commission Warrant it has responsibility for investigating and reporting on non-governmental records and archives of all kinds throughout the United Kingdom. In October 2011, when the Museums and Archives Council was wound up, TNA took over its responsibilities in respect of archives in England, including providing information and advice to ministers on archives policy; the National Archives now sees this part of its role as being "to enhance the'archival health of the nation'". The National Archives is the UK government's official archive, "containing 1000 years of history from Domesday Book to the present", with records from parchment and paper scrolls through to digital files and archived websites.

The Lockheed A-12 was a reconnaissance aircraft built for the United States Central Intelligence Agency by Lockheed's Skunk Works, based on the designs of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. The aircraft was designated A-12, the 12th in a series of internal design efforts for "Archangel", the aircraft's internal code name. In 1959 it was selected over Convair's FISH and Kingfish designs as the winner of Project GUSTO, was developed and operated under Project Oxcart; the CIA's representatives favored Convair's design for its smaller radar cross-section, but the A-12's specifications were better and its projected cost was much lower. The companies' respective track records proved decisive. Convair's work on the B-58 had been plagued with delays and cost overruns, whereas Lockheed had produced the U-2 on time and under budget. In addition, Lockheed had experience running a "black" project; the A-12 was produced from 1962 to 1964 and flew from 1963 to 1968. It was the precursor to the twin-seat U. S. Air ForceYF-12 prototype interceptor, M-21 launcher for the D-21 drone, the SR-71 Blackbird, a longer variant able to carry a heavier fuel and camera load.

The A-12 began flying missions in 1967 and its final mission was in May 1968. The program was revealed in the mid-1990s. A CIA officer wrote, "Oxcart was selected from a random list of codenames to designate this R&D and all work on the A-12; the aircraft itself came to be called that as well." The crews named the A-12 the Cygnus, suggested by pilot Jack Weeks to follow the Lockheed practice of naming aircraft after celestial bodies. With the failure of the CIA's Project Rainbow to reduce the radar cross-section of the U-2, preliminary work began inside Lockheed in late 1957 to develop a follow-on aircraft to overfly the Soviet Union. Designer Kelly Johnson said, "In April 1958 I recall having long discussions with Richard Bissell over the subject of whether there should be a follow-on to the U-2 aircraft. We agreed... that there should be one more round before satellites would make aircraft reconnaissance obsolete for covert reconnaissance."Under Project Gusto the designs were nicknamed "Archangel", after the U-2 program, known as "Angel".

As the aircraft designs evolved and configuration changes occurred, the internal Lockheed designation changed from Archangel-1 to Archangel-2, so on. These names for the evolving designs soon became known as "A-1", "A-2", etc; the CIA program to develop the follow-on aircraft to the U-2 was code-named Oxcart. These designs had reached the A-11 stage; the A-11 was competing against a Convair proposal called Kingfish, of similar performance. However, the Kingfish included a number of features that reduced its radar cross-section, seen as favorable to the board. Lockheed responded with a simple update of the A-11, adding twin canted fins instead of a single right-angle one, adding a number of areas of non-metallic materials; this became the A-12 design. On 26 January 1960, the CIA ordered 12 A-12 aircraft; because the A-12 was well ahead of its time, many new technologies had to be invented for the Oxcart project with some remaining in use in present day. One of the biggest problems that engineers faced at that time was working with titanium.

In his book Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed, Ben Rich stated, "Our supplier, Titanium Metals Corporation, had only limited reserves of the precious alloy, so the CIA conducted a worldwide search and using third parties and dummy companies, managed to unobtrusively purchase the base metal from one of the world's leading exporters – the Soviet Union. The Russians never had an inkling of how they were contributing to the creation of the airplane being rushed into construction to spy on their homeland."Before the A-12, titanium was used only in high-temperature exhaust fairings and other small parts directly related to supporting, cooling, or shaping high-temperature areas on aircraft like those subject to the greatest kinetic heating from the airstream, such as wing leading edges. The A-12, was constructed of titanium. Titanium is quite rigid and difficult to machine, which made it difficult to form into curves given available techniques; this made the construction of the leading edges of similar surfaces difficult to form.

The solution was found by machining only small "fillets" of the material with the required shape and gluing them onto the underlying framework, more linear. A good example is on the wing. With the move to the A-12, another improvement in RCS was made by replacing the fillets with new radar-absorbing composite materials made from iron ferrite and silicon laminate, both combined with asbestos to absorb radar returns and make the aircraft more stealthy. After development and production at the Skunk Works, in Burbank, the first A-12 was transferred to Groom Lake test facility. On 25 April 1962 it was taken on its first flight with Lockheed test pilot Louis Schalk at the controls; the first official flight took place on 30 April and subsequent supersonic flight on 4 May 1962, reaching speeds of Mach 1.1 at 40,000 ft. The first five A-12s, in 1962, were flown with Pratt & Whitney J75 engines capable of 17,000 lbf thrust each, enabling the J75-equipped A-12s to obtain speeds of Mach 2.0. On 5 October 1962, with the newly developed J58 engines, an A-12 flew with one J75 engine, one J58 engine.

Denmark the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Nordic country and the southernmost of the Scandinavian nations. Denmark lies southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, is bordered to the south by Germany; the Kingdom of Denmark comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean: the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark proper consists of a peninsula, an archipelago of 443 named islands, with the largest being Zealand and the North Jutlandic Island; the islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. Denmark has a total area of 42,924 km2, land area of 42,394 km2, the total area including Greenland and the Faroe Islands is 2,210,579 km2, a population of 5.8 million. The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 10th century as a proficient seafaring nation in the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea. Denmark and Norway were ruled together under one sovereign ruler in the Kalmar Union, established in 1397 and ending with Swedish secession in 1523.

The areas of Denmark and Norway remained under the same monarch until Denmark -- Norway. Beginning in the 17th century, there were several devastating wars with the Swedish Empire, ending with large cessions of territory to Sweden. After the Napoleonic Wars, Norway was ceded to Sweden, while Denmark kept the Faroe Islands and Iceland. In the 19th century there was a surge of nationalist movements, which were defeated in the 1864 Second Schleswig War. Denmark remained neutral during World War I. In April 1940, a German invasion saw brief military skirmishes while the Danish resistance movement was active from 1943 until the German surrender in May 1945. An industrialised exporter of agricultural produce in the second half of the 19th century, Denmark introduced social and labour-market reforms in the early 20th century that created the basis for the present welfare state model with a developed mixed economy; the Constitution of Denmark was signed on 5 June 1849, ending the absolute monarchy, which had begun in 1660.

It establishes a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy. The government and national parliament are seated in Copenhagen, the nation's capital, largest city, main commercial centre. Denmark exercises hegemonic influence in the Danish Realm, devolving powers to handle internal affairs. Home rule was established in the Faroe Islands in 1948. Denmark negotiated certain opt-outs, it is among the founding members of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, OSCE, the United Nations. Denmark is considered to be one of the most economically and developed countries in the world. Danes enjoy a high standard of living and the country ranks in some metrics of national performance, including education, health care, protection of civil liberties, democratic governance and human development; the country ranks as having the world's highest social mobility, a high level of income equality, is among the countries with the lowest perceived levels of corruption in the world, the eleventh-most developed in the world, has one of the world's highest per capita incomes, one of the world's highest personal income tax rates.

The etymology of the word Denmark, the relationship between Danes and Denmark and the unifying of Denmark as one kingdom, is a subject which attracts debate. This is centered on the prefix "Dan" and whether it refers to the Dani or a historical person Dan and the exact meaning of the -"mark" ending. Most handbooks derive the first part of the word, the name of the people, from a word meaning "flat land", related to German Tenne "threshing floor", English den "cave"; the -mark is believed to mean woodland or borderland, with probable references to the border forests in south Schleswig. The first recorded use of the word Danmark within Denmark itself is found on the two Jelling stones, which are runestones believed to have been erected by Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth; the larger stone of the two is popularly cited as Denmark's "baptismal certificate", though both use the word "Denmark", in the form of accusative ᛏᛅᚾᛘᛅᚢᚱᚴ tanmaurk on the large stone, genitive ᛏᛅᚾᛘᛅᚱᚴᛅᚱ "tanmarkar" on the small stone.

The inhabitants of Denmark are there called "Danes", in the accusative. The earliest archaeological findings in Denmark date back to the Eem interglacial period from 130,000–110,000 BC. Denmark has been inhabited since around 12,500 BC and agriculture has been evident since 3900 BC; the Nordic Bronze Age in Denmark was marked by burial mounds, which left an abundance of findings including lurs and the Sun Chariot. During the Pre-Roman Iron Age, native groups began migrating south, the first tribal Danes came to the country between the Pre-Roman and the Germanic Iron Age, in the Roman Iron Age; the Roman provinces maintained trade routes and relations with native tribes in Denmark, Roman coins have been found in Denmark. Evidence of strong Celtic cultural influence dates from this period in Denmark and much of North-West Europe and is among other things reflected in the finding of the Gundestrup cauldron; the tribal Danes came from the east Danish islands and Scania and spoke an early form of North Germanic.

Historians believe that before their arrival, most of Jutland and the nearest islands were settled by tribal J

Operation Sea Lion written as Operation Sealion, was Nazi Germany's code name for the plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War. Following the Fall of France, Adolf Hitler, the German Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, hoped the British government would seek a peace agreement and he reluctantly considered invasion only as a last resort if all other options failed; as a precondition, he specified the achievement of both air and naval superiority over the English Channel and the proposed landing sites, but the German forces did not achieve either at any point during the war, both the German High Command and Hitler himself had serious doubts about the prospects for success. A large number of barges were gathered together on the Channel coast, with air losses increasing, Hitler postponed Sea Lion indefinitely on 17 September 1940 and it was never put into action. Adolf Hitler hoped for a negotiated peace with the UK and made no preparations for amphibious assault on Britain until the Fall of France.

At the time, the only forces with experience of, or modern equipment for, such landings were the Japanese, at the Battle of Wuhan in 1938. In September 1939, the German invasion of Poland was a success, but this infringed on both a French and a British alliance with Poland and both countries declared war on Germany. On 9 October, Hitler's "Directive No. 6 for the Conduct of the War" planned an offensive to defeat these allies and "win as much territory as possible in Holland and northern France to serve as a base for the successful prosecution of the air and sea war against Britain". With the prospect of the Channel ports falling under Kriegsmarine control, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder attempted to anticipate the obvious next step that might entail and instructed his operations officer, Kapitän Hansjürgen Reinicke, to draw up a document examining "the possibility of troop landings in England should the future progress of the war make the problem arise". Reinicke spent five days on this study and set forth the following prerequisites: Eliminating or sealing off Royal Navy forces from the landing and approach areas.

Eliminating the Royal Air Force. Destroying all Royal Navy units in the coastal zone. Preventing British submarine action against the landing fleet. On 22 November 1939, the Head of Luftwaffe intelligence Joseph "Beppo" Schmid presented his "Proposal for the Conduct of Air Warfare", which argued for a counter to the British blockade and said "Key is to paralyse the British trade" by blocking imports to Britain and attacking seaports; the OKW considered the options and Hitler's 29 November "Directive No. 9 – Instructions For Warfare Against The Economy of the Enemy" stated that once the coast had been secured, the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were to blockade UK ports with sea mines, attack shipping and warships, make air attacks on shore installations and industrial production. This directive remained in force in the first phase of the Battle of Britain. In December 1939, the German Army issued its own study paper and solicited opinions and input from both Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe; the paper outlined an assault on England's eastern coast between The Wash and the River Thames by troops crossing the North Sea from ports in the Low Countries.

It suggested airborne troops as well as seaborne landings of 100,000 infantry in East Anglia, transported by the Kriegsmarine, to prevent Royal Navy ships from getting through the Channel, while the Luftwaffe had to control airspace over the landings. The Kriegsmarine response was focused on pointing out the many difficulties to be surmounted if invading England was to be a viable option, it could not envisage taking on the Royal Navy Home Fleet and said it would take a year to organise shipping for the troops. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, responded with a single-page letter in which he stated, " combined operation having the objective of landing in England must be rejected, it could only be the final act of an victorious war against Britain as otherwise the preconditions for success of a combined operation would not be met". Germany's swift and successful occupation of France and the Low Countries gained control of the Channel coast, facing what Schmid's 1939 report called their "most dangerous enemy".

Raeder met Hitler on 21 May 1940 and raised the topic of invasion, but warned of the risks and expressed a preference for blockade by air and raiders. By the end of May, the Kriegsmarine had become more opposed to invading Britain following its Pyrrhic victory in Norway: after Operation Weserübung, the Kriegsmarine had only one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, four destroyers available for operations. Raeder was opposed to Sea Lion, for the entire Kriegsmarine surface fleet had been either sunk or badly damaged in Weserübung, his service was hopelessly outnumbered by the ships of the Royal Navy. British parliamentarians still arguing for peace negotiations were defeated in the May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis, but throughout July the Germans continued with attempts to find a diplomatic solution. In a report presented on 30 June, OKW Chief of StaffAlfred Jodl reviewed options to increase pressure on Britain to agree to a negotiated peace; the first priority was to eliminate the Royal Air Force and gain air supremacy.

Intensified air attacks against shipping and the economy could affect food supplies and civilian morale in the long term. Reprisal attacks of terror bombing had the potential to cause quicker capitulation but the effect on morale was uncertain. Once the Luftwaffe had cont

A military is a heavily-armed highly-organised force primarily intended for warfare, also known as an armed force, typically officially authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct military uniform. It may consist of one or more military branches …

A walkie-talkie is a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. Its development during the Second World War has been variously credited to Donald L. Hings, radio engineer Alfred J. Gross, and engineering teams at Motorola. First used for …

World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million …

The Allies of World War I or Entente Powers is the term commonly used for the coalition that opposed the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria during the First World War. — By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, the major European powers …

The American entry into World War I came in April 1917, after more than two and a half years of efforts by President Woodrow Wilson to keep the United States out of the war. — Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the British, American public opinion reflected that of the …

President Woodrow Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official relations with Germany on 3 February 1917

Come on in, America, the Blood's Fine! (1917) by M.A. Kempf.

The song "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier" was a hit in 1915, selling 650,000 copies. Its expression of popular pacifist sentiment "helped make the pacifist movement a hard, quantifiable political reality to be reckoned with."

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Georgian ethnicity. He led the Soviet Union from the mid–1920s until 1953 as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union …

Joseph Stalin in an authorised image taken in 1937 and used for state publicity purposes

The United States Army is the land warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution. As the oldest and most senior branch of the U.S …

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total …

The National Archives is a non-ministerial government department. Its parent department is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is the official archive of the UK government and for England and Wales; and "guardian of …

The Public Record Office, Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was merged with the Historical Manuscripts Commission to form The …

The United Kingdom, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but more commonly known as the UK or Britain, is a sovereign country lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of …

Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the …

A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place, or thing - commonly used for affection. — The term hypocoristic is used to refer to a nickname of affection between those in love or with a close emotional bond, compared with a term of endearment. — It is a form of endearment …

"I, Jimmy Carter..." James Earl Carter is sworn in as President of the United States using his nickname "Jimmy" in January 1977.

The Weimaraner's coat color led to its nickname of the "Silver Ghost".

The Abwehr was the German military intelligence service for the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht from 1920 to 1945. Despite the fact that the Treaty of Versailles prohibited the Germans altogether from establishing an intelligence organization of their own, they formed an espionage …

Secret radio service of the OKW Amt Ausland/Abwehr (Foreign Affairs/Defence Office)

Uncle Sam is a common national personification of the American government or the United States in general that, according to legend, came into use during the War of 1812 and was supposedly named for Samuel Wilson. The actual origin is by a legend. Since the early 19th century, Uncle …

J. M. Flagg's 1917 poster was based on the original British Lord Kitchener poster of three years earlier. It was used to recruit soldiers for both World War I and World War II. Flagg used a modified version of his own face for Uncle Sam, and veteran Walter Botts provided the pose.

In Norse mythology, Heimdallr is a god who possesses the resounding horn Gjallarhorn, owns the golden-maned horse Gulltoppr, is called the shining god and the whitest of the gods, has gold teeth, and is the son of Nine Mothers. Heimdallr is attested as …

Heimdallr brings forth the gift of the gods to humanity (1907) by Nils Asplund

The cock Gullinkambi atop his head and the burning rainbow bridge Bifröst in the background, Heimdallr blows into Gjallarhorn while holding a sword with a man's face on it (a reference to the "man's head" kenning). Illustration (1907) by J. T. Lundbye.

Operation Sea Lion, also written as Operation Sealion, was Nazi Germany's code name for the plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War. Following the Fall of France, Adolf Hitler, the German Führer and Supreme …

The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, or the Royal Arms for short, is the official coat of arms of the British monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II. These arms are used by the Queen in her official capacity as monarch of the United Kingdom. Variants of the Royal Arms are used by other …

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, which started on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation stemmed from Nazi Germany's ideological aims to conquer the western Soviet Union so that it could be …

Clockwise from top left: German soldiers advance through Northern Russia; German flamethrower team in the Soviet Union; Soviet Ilyushin Il-2s flying over German positions near Moscow; Soviet prisoners of war on the way to German prison camps; Soviet soldiers fire artillery at German positions.

Plan of new German settlement colonies (marked with dots and diamonds), drawn up by the Friedrich Wilhelm University Institute of Agriculture in Berlin, 1942

Frederick I, also known as Frederick Barbarossa, was the Holy Roman Emperor from 2 January 1155 until his death. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 …

A golden bust of Frederick I, given to his godfather Count Otto of Cappenberg in 1171. It was used as a reliquary in Cappenberg Abbey and is said in the deed of the gift to have been made "in the likeness of the emperor".

The Rhine is one of the major European rivers, which has its sources in Switzerland and flows in an mostly northerly direction through Germany and The Netherlands to the North Sea. The river begins in the …

Blitzkrieg is a method of warfare whereby an attacking force, spearheaded by a dense concentration of armoured and motorised or mechanised infantry formations with close air support, breaks through the opponent's line of defence by short, fast, powerful attacks and …

The classic characteristic of what is commonly known as "blitzkrieg" is a highly mobile form of infantry and armour, working in combined arms. (German armed forces, June 1942)

Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for "Operation Weser-Exercise", the Weser being a …

The Weser is a river in Northwestern Germany. Formed at Hannoversch Münden by the confluence of the rivers Fulda and Werra, it flows through Lower Saxony, then reaching the Hanseatic city of Bremen, before emptying 50 km further north …

Denmark, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Nordic country and the southernmost of the Scandinavian nations. Denmark lies southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and is bordered to the south by Germany. The Kingdom of Denmark also comprises two …

The V-2, technical name Aggregat 4, was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Germany as a "vengeance weapon", assigned …

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or from a combination of fission and fusion reactions. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter …

Ukrainian workers use equipment provided by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency to dismantle a Soviet-era missile silo. After the end of the Cold War, Ukraine and the other non-Russian, post-Soviet republics relinquished Soviet nuclear stockpiles to Russia.

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Oppenheimer and Groves at the remains of the Trinity test in September 1945, two months after the test blast and just after the end of World War II. The white overshoes prevented fallout from sticking to the soles of their shoes.

The Lockheed A-12 was a reconnaissance aircraft built for the United States Central Intelligence Agency by Lockheed's Skunk Works, based on the designs of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. The aircraft was designated A-12, the 12th in a series of internal design efforts for "Archangel", the …

The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft that was operated by the United States Air Force. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by Lockheed and its Skunk Works division. American aerospace …

An intercontinental ballistic missile is a guided ballistic missile with a minimum range of 5,500 kilometres primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery. Similarly, conventional, chemical, and biological weapons can also be …

Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost prefecture of Japan. It encompasses two thirds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over 1,000 kilometres long. The Ryukyu Islands extend southwest from Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu (the …